A new plan to resurrect Toronto’s derelict Port Lands calls for less park space and more development. It’s more practical but a lot less attractive.

When realism clashes with unfettered imagination it’s usually creativity that suffers. And so it is with a new plan to revitalize Toronto’s derelict Port Lands.

It’s far less attractive than an earlier version from which park space has been stripped away. But the new path forward is more realistic. It puts more land under development, accelerates construction, cuts flood control and other costs by $130 million, and retains some existing industry in the area.

All that makes it practical, but it’s still a significant step down in terms of ideal city building. Despite this loss, Waterfront Toronto’s Port Lands plan seems the best we can expect from a city hall where penny pinching remains the dominant urban value.

The agency’s initial vision for the area was the product of more than a decade of study and public consultation. Two factors appear to be driving revisions: In heading off a ridiculous Ford administration effort to seize control of the Port Lands, city council voted for speeded up development. And the Toronto Port Authority, and other industrial users, complained of being squeezed by the original plan.

To accommodate their concern, the new approach retains a major cement factory and its docking area, and calls for a concrete pier where much-celebrated Promontory Park was to be built. That signature green space is now gutted.

In an almost laughable effort to put a positive spin on these depressing adjustments, John Campbell, head of Waterfront Toronto, praised continued industrial presence as a welcome “theatre of the harbour.” Some show. Ticket to see the cement plant, anyone?

Overall, the new Port Lands “acceleration initiative” cuts planned park space by 25 per cent, down to 10.8 hectares. At the same time, it boosts land devoted to development by 15 per cent, to 41.6 hectares. It’s all so predictable: that’s where the money is.

One useful feature of the new $1.9-billion plan is a multi-stage rollout in which work on flood protection measures and construction of new neighbourhoods is done in distinct phases. Under this system, revenue from early-stage development could be used to help fund later work. That makes a lot of sense.

Exactly how fast all this would proceed depends on future demand for the millions of square feet of office space, thousands of homes, and hundreds of hotel rooms envisioned for the area. The number of residential units, for example, could vary from 8,700 to 10,700 over the next 30 years, depending on the real estate market. Even under this accelerated plan, it will likely be five years before any serious construction begins.

This new vision for the Port Lands is to go before the city’s executive committee next month and to city council in October. There’s virtually no hope of returning to Waterfront Toronto’s original plan. It’s gone. But 30 years is a long time, and much can change between the drafting of an urban designer’s charts and the pouring of concrete.

We can only hope that, as time goes on, a better balance between park space and development will evolve in the Port Lands. Certainly, it mustn’t be allowed to get worse.

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